WARNING: do not replace tea with coffee
by in a little boat
Summary: You have been warned.
1. Chapter 1

It was a perfectly lovely afternoon; sun shining, birds twittering, people going happily about their day to day business.

That is, on some planets, it was a lovely afternoon. And only on some, were the people actually what the average human might refer to as people. And, not to mention, not everyone was happy about it. Especially not a certain Arthur Dent, who, though a million light years and a lifetime away from his beloved but literally shattered home planet, was in a rather distressing pickle of a situation at the moment.

It had actually begun that morning. For some reason unbeknownst to Arthur, they had decided to go out for a little ride on the Heart of Gold. Why had he gone with them, again? Oh, right; only because he truly had no other place to go. Except for Earth. Which, unfortunately, was not really Earth, but a rather accurate reconstruction.. a replica, in fact.

He was fairly sure that the joyride had been Zaphod's idea, particularily because he despised Zaphod with a seething and vigorous passion, but Ford had quickly taken all credit for the idea (if only to prevent Arthur from becoming another Marvin). And we all know that the Universe, although known for being overly cool with and confident about extravagantly nonsensical and usually exceedingly ridiculous concepts, could not handle two Marvins. It has also been suggested that not even God, if there is or was or ever will be a God, could handle another Marvin. In fact, 2000 years following the discombobulation of Marvin, a philosopher dedicated 488 of his 500 years writing a very large tome on exactly how the Universe would invariably collapse if there had been, or ever would be, an additional Marvin-type of being. This proved, naturally, to be an enormously futile waste of time, and so miserable was Schnurmelpuff, as he had named himself, that he took the trouble to go back in time, track the android down, and give him a swift kick in the rear. Astonishingly, this reconnected a malfunctioning chip in Marvin's brain, causing him perpetual happiness, much like Calvin the herring-ceiling-everything-loving dog robot. Thus the philosopher changed the entire course of history, and had to hire, though it made him cringe, Dirk Gently, to make things right again. (To put it one way, to make everything equal to 42 again.)

Arthur had awoken that morning in a cold sweat. He had been having the strangest nightmares about the Earth lately. They seemed to have frightened him a lot. Quite a lot. So much, indeed, that he did not remember that Fenchurch had brought herself with him until after he had decided to indulge in a good, dramatic scream.

Fenchurch did not sleep like Trillian, which was lucky on Arthur's part. If Fenchurch shared Trillian's sleeping habits, he would have been sliced, diced, and poured into a stew right then and there. But Fenchurch was blessed (and, it should not be ignored, cursed) with the ability to sleep through anything, and therefore not even Arthur's bloodcurdling scream could awaken her.

Later that morning, Arthur and Fenchurch made their way to the Tea Area (sadly transformed into a coffee area by Zaphod) and searched in vain for tea. Ford was already quite awake and chattering away at a billion miles per second. Arthur made himself a mental note to keep Ford away from any and all future sources of caffeine.

"So have you heard about the hoopy froody happening news, my friends?" Ford stopped his chatter for a blissful moment, only to take a quick break and then resumed conversation.

"No," said Fenchurch in a voice that sent a chill even down Arthur's spine.

"Ah, neither have I. I was hoping that you had." Ford did not seem to have taken notice of the warning tone in her voice, and continued. "We've got a long day ahead of us," he beamed as he poured himself another tankard of coffee, "First we're stopping by Milliways for breakfast," Arthur's heart sunk at the mention of the Restaurant.

"We are not stopping at Milliways," Arthur glared pointedly at Ford, who had chosen to be obliviously unperceptive at the moment. "That last incident...order, of bacon was a little too.. er, intimate, you know. I mean.. I've never particularily enjoyed watching an animal cook itself."

"Oh, brilliant!" nodded Ford distantly. He hadn't taken in a word. He downed yet another kettle of coffee.

Fenchurch pushed Arthur decidedly AWAY from the coffee machine (and maniac).

"Are you OK?"

He wasn't quite sure. Lately he'd been especially nostalgic for his peaceful home back on planet Earth. He felt a strange yet pressing urge to make a sandwich, which seemed odd, at least at this point in his life. He had only vague memories of being a Sandwich Maker. He suddenly felt an onslaught of confused emotions and decided he would simply give up on paying attention to them for the moment.

"Oh yeah," he sighed, "Positively brilliant." Fenchurch grinned at him and he felt profoundly happier. Or at least less frenzied.

She took him by the arm and dragged him over to a strange computerized device, urged him to sit down in front of it, and gestured at the vast array of buttons. "Check this out," she pressed a rather urgent looking, enormous red button (surrounded by signs that read, in order,"DO NOT TOUCH! " "DO NOT PRESS!" "YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT!" and "DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU!") much to Arthur's surprise. To Arthur's even more immense surprise, nothing seemed to happen.

"Er.. ehm..uh.." he muttered helplessly. "The signs.."

Fenchurch laughed and dragged him away from the machine, to a round window. "Watch."

The ship was shooting out small, star shaped objects that exploded in very impressive patterns. It took him a few moments to realize that they were fireworks. Tears came to his eyes.

Silently, they stood, watching the fireworks go off.


	2. Chapter 2

Marvin was moping, as usual.. however, at the moment, he was moping not about stupidity in general, as he usually did, but moping about the stupidity of one carbon based life form in particular. Zaphod Beeblebrox, ex president of the Galaxy and perpetual idiot, was engaging in particularily excessive stupidity at the moment. He had cordoned off the control area of the ship and was lighting candles everywhere. He was going to make it up to Trillian – he wasn't quite sure _what_ he was making up, but she was extremely upset, and the dark side of his brain had told him that if he didn't do SOMETHING he would feel the wrath of both Trillian and Fenchurch, and everyone in between, and _that_, it told him, would _not_ be cool and froody.

So here he was burning incense and candles in the control room. He had scattered roses everywhere at Marvin's suggestion. Marvin was only suggesting this because he enjoyed watching Zaphod do stupid things, but at the same time stupidity depressed him. Zaphod then brewed 2 especially potent Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and stepped back to admire his work.

"Wowee," he put his hands on his hips and let loose that huge, arrogant, toothy grin. "Now to find Trill."

Marvin sat in the corner, incredibly depressed. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Zaphod didn't seem to take it in, so Marvin repeated himself. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

He whirled around dramatically and, reluctantly, met eyes with the paranoid android. "Why zarking not?"

Marvin heaved a dramatic sigh. "She's locked herself in the lavatory. She's extremely depressed about something." He paused. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. Perhaps her IQ has gone up by a vast amount. I mean, brain the size of a pla.." But Zaphod was already gone.

I spent an entire bloody half hour working on the control room! How dare she be so zarking inconsiderate, thought Zaphod as he pounded on the lavatory door. "Hey Trill, get outta there!"

There was an icy silence. "Oh really, Zaphod," came Trillian's equally icy voice. "You expect me to _not_ be upset about last night?"

Zaphod felt a very, very minute flicker of shock pass over him for the lesser part of a nanosecond. "What in zark's name are you talking about?"

"Hey hey," Eddie the shipboard computer decided to chime in, "We've got some super deadly missiles heading toward us at a super cool velocity of 100 meters per second." A pause. "This incense is great, guys, thanks so much, it was really starting to stink in here.."

"Incense?" Trillian couldn't stop laughing. Zaphod scrambled towards the control room.


End file.
